No literary novice, with just one published short story to her credit, dreams up a whole novel in the shower, writes 100 pages in one frenzied sweep, lands a big-time agent with all the right connections, then gets to sign a two-book deal with a major publisher, collecting an advance that would make a veteran author feel loved, and passionate endorsements from the likes of serious lit heavyweights Toni Morrison and Salman Rushdie.

But that’s exactly what did happen to Taiye Selasi, now 33, the London-born, Massachusetts-raised, Yale- and Oxford-educated daughter of West African parents, and the sudden darling of the literary world thanks to her first novel, Ghana Must Go, a poignant account of how children deal with issues of abandonment after their father, a surgeon, dies of a heart attack, and their mother, also a doctor, can no longer keep her family together.

The book has garnered rave reviews around the world since its release earlier this month, and the elegantly sculpted Selasi, who lives in Rome, has the deep, authoritative voice of a BBC news presenter and drops Italian word-bombs into her conversation like little fizzy pick-me-ups, sounds suitably astonished by her rapid rise to literary fame during a phone interview from San Francisco, yet another stop on a city-a-day cross-continental promotional tour organized by publisher, Penguin Books.

“I’m overwhelmed with gratitude, particularly after what has happened to the publishing industry,” says Selasi, who, because her family is scattered all over the world, is no stranger to long-distance travel.

“You’d have to be stupid to realize what a miracle it is to be published at all, let alone for the first time and with this kind of support from a publisher, while the industry is in such financial turmoil.”

Selasi has a place in Manhattan, she says, but prefers to call Rome home “for the climate, the culture, the incredible richness of the art there, I find Rome both inspiring and nurturing, an ideal place to work.”

Lest we gain the impression that it has all been a little too easy for her, Selasi confesses that there was a moment of panic when she signed the book deal, followed by writer’s block for six months.

And she’s not the overnight sensation she seems to be. While studying international relations at Oxford, Selasi dabbled in writing stage dramas and screenplays in her spare time, and had one piece produced at a small theatre there by Avery Willis, the niece of beloved American novelist Morrrison.

“I wrote fiction during my entire childhood, from age 4 to 18, and started writing plays when I went to Yale and Oxford,” she explains.

One of her screenplays is currently in development in Hollywood; the other, adapted from Helene Cooper’s memoir, The House at Sugar Beach, is in the hands of hip-hop star/novice movie producer Alicia Keys.

It was Selasi’s original play that led to an introduction to Morrison — at a dinner party thrown by Willis to celebrate the Oxford opening — and the famed writer’s agreement to read Selasi’s short story, The Sex Life of African Girls, which subsequently appeared in the premium literary magazine Granta.

Morrison shared her enthusiasm with Rushdie, who was equally impressed, and arranged an introduction with primo U.S. literary agent Andrew Wylie, known in the trade as The Jackal.

“I’ve loved films all my life,” says Selasi, admitting she received no special training in the complex business of writing for the screen.

“My stepfather took us to see a film every week without fail, so the medium isn’t foreign to me. When writing screenplays it’s a matter of remembering to leave off the page anything and everything that doesn’t appear on the screen.”

When she returned to prose writing at age 25, Selasi found her writing style had be come much more visual, the one quality critics have noted as outstanding in reviews of Ghana Must Go.

“Some people think this is my family’s story, but it’s not,” she explains. “The details do come from my life, mostly because I could write about them without thinking — the names of buildings, medical procedures I heard my parents discussing, street scenes in California. I used them shamelessly. It was practical in that it allowed me to move on to the important things that were going on in my story.

“The characters, their motivations, their issues, their dramas, their humanity, are very much their own.”

Not far into the book, Selasi realized she had to sacrifice her relationship with a lover. It wasn’t just a matter of artistic survival, she says.

“As a young woman I had been seeking experience, knowledge, truth, the stuff writers need in their work, but when the artist actually kicked in, I came to understand that in this romantic relationship I was not free to be myself, or to find myself, in order to begin the true work I needed to do.

“The inspiration for Ghana Must Go had been a gift. And once received, I had to honour it by finding my voice and telling the story from the inside.

“It was heartbreaking, excruciatingly painful. I wish I’d fallen in love when I was younger, and living on someone else’s dime.”

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